


Shield of the World

by TK_DuVeraun



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, M/M, Possessed by the Goddess!Felix, blame Casey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:01:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23284450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TK_DuVeraun/pseuds/TK_DuVeraun
Summary: It didn't have a beginning. It always was.All Crests, all Crest Stones, are part of the Progenitor God if you think about it.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 22
Kudos: 128





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, yo, like He Will this might get a second "chapter" at some point, but for now I'm just removing the brain worms. [Check out the inspiring art here](https://twitter.com/Pasywasy/status/1241431699461828608).

It never began. It always was, Felix would have said if someone had asked, if he hadn’t made it clear he wouldn’t appreciate questions. But the first one he remembered, Sylvain was visiting with his family, meeting him, the new baby Fraldarius. Sylvain had been too young and too excited to keep a solid grip on his wooden soldier and had dropped it right on newborn Felix’s face.

If someone asked, which they wouldn’t, and Sylvain was there, he would claim Felix was wrong. He didn’t remember dropping his toy and newborns couldn’t remember anything, so it couldn’t be true, but that was the  _ point, _ as only someone as clever as Sylvain could miss. That was the first time Felix remembered grabbing time in his fists, then tiny, and shoving it back so that nothing hit his delicate baby nose.

His Crest was still Fraldarius, then.

\---

Most children are cry babies because the things they experience are literally the worst things to ever happen to them. Felix was a cry baby because every unspeakable horror, first from Fodlan and later from the entire world, would flash before his eyes and then pause, waiting for his approval or for him to throw time out on its ass and let everyone try again. When he was seven years old and screamed at the top of his lungs that Sylvain had been pushed down a well, no one thought anything of it. No amount of crying or tantrums would force his father to take him to Gautier and no amount of hitting time would make Miklan do anything but shove his little brother in the well.

Margrave Gautier had an ugly look in his eye when Rodrigue asked him if Sylvain had fallen down a well, but then he denied it and it was forgotten. Except by Sylvain, who months later begged Felix to keep future visions to himself. It was worse, Sylvain told him, if he talked about that kind of thing.

Fire took the place of sobs, spitting out of Felix’s mouth. “I’ll kill him.”

“Felix, no!”

That was the first time his Crest changed shape.

\---

When he was ten, Felix ignored Sylvain’s pleas, stabbing Miklan through the heart with an impossibly sharp practice sword. But losing his older brother hurt Sylvain worse than the frostbite, so Felix rewound time and left the practice sword as plain wood.

\--- 

For several minutes on one fateful afternoon, Rodrigue was the only bearer of the Crest of Fraldarius. The brown burned out of Felix’s eyes, leaving a cat-like yellow and his hair flashed over until it was the clear cyan of the sky. Power burned through Felix as he saw the murder of King Lambert and his family, waiting for his approval. He denied it. Denied it and denied the space between Fraldarius and Duscur until he was there and his sword could cut through the assassins in the space between one second and the next.

He woke up on the floor of his bedroom with his hair and eyes and Crest irrevocably changed, but Glenn alive and bewildered as he stared at the suddenly dead bodies that collapsed around the royal carriages.


	2. Chapter 2

Sylvain coped both extremely poorly and very well to the Tragedy That Wasn’t. Felix’s transformation of appearance and Crest left him unconscious for a week, though still shorter than it would have taken for his father to hear about Glenn’s death that happened and then didn’t. Three days into recovery, Sylvain arrived, as fast as he could with the time it took Rodrigue’s message of Felix’s mysterious illness to reach Gautier. He sat on Felix’s bed, cradling his unconscious best friend and failing to read a book about military tactics from the Dadga-Brigid war.

He refused to leave Fraldarius for three months, for the first time not because of personal injuries or the threat thereof. He braided Felix’s hair badly until he could do it well and then bound the braid with dark, silk ribbon to conjure some feeling of stability. But he took Felix’s change of personality in stride, too happy that Felix had survived whatever it was to push. If that meant he was more often than not, Felix’s personal training dummy, he didn’t complain. Nor did he ask what Felix was training to fight.

\---

They arrived at Garreg Mach with far too much fanfare. King Lambert was the epitome of overly doting, enthusiastic father scaled up by his royalty. Felix almost regretted letting him live as he was dragged along for the walking festival from Fhirdiad to the Ohgma Mountains.

“Felix,” Dimitri said, his voice completely lost under the procession’s celebrations, “I fear that I have failed as your friend, of late.”

Felix chewed on a skewer of spiced meat, hoping that would be the end of it, but alas the prince’s stare didn’t abate. “We have better things to do than play around like children.”

“I suppose that has merit. I have been rather busy with affairs relating to Duscur. Father attempted to hire someone from Duscur to be my retainer for the duration of our stay at Garreg Mach. Mother and I very gently dissuaded him.”

As much as he didn’t want to have the conversation, Felix much less wanted Dimitri to go back to talking about their friendship, so he took the bait. “And what’s the problem with having one as a retainer? It shows you trust them not to stab you in the back.”

Dimitri fainted. Felix nudged time a few times until he managed to stay seated. 

“Felix! You must not speak of the people of Duscur in such a- such a demeaning fashion! They are not a ‘them;’ they are individuals just as you and I.”

“Fine, whatever, but that’s not the point. What’s the problem?”

Dimitri kept trying to argue and Felix kept elbowing time in the side until he got to the point. “Our people see those from Duscur as… Let me be clear that I in no way agree with this, but they see people from Duscur as being… lesser. Less intelligent. Less civilized. Worth less.”

“That’s stupid.”

“I agree, which is why every eligible candidate in Duscur who wished to was given the opportunity to take the entrance exam for the academy. Mother even convinced the proctors to not dock points for things like proper spelling and grammar in our language, or for questions about the Seirosian faith. One young man will be joining us, as an equal, this year and I hope to one day convince the Archbishop to give Duscur its own house.”

Felix watched Dimitri out of the corner of his eye. The prince would have survived the Tragedy That Wasn’t, but the yellow in his eyes and the sky blue in his hair made Felix think this was new. Strange, to be sure, and not something Felix would ever care about, but something about Dimitri’s impassioned ramble translated to him sleeping better, even if he wasn’t sure why. “Hn.”

\---

Sylvain didn’t flirt with women. It was a fact like the sky being blue or Ingrid wanting to kiss girls. And also Glenn, but Felix couldn’t think about that without laughing or gagging, so he didn’t consider it. Sylvain didn’t flirt with women and hadn’t since he was a precocious child who knew pretty words and a big smile would get him treats, but Felix’s other sense said there was something decidedly Significant about Sylvain not flirting. Molinaro was respected, King Lambert was alive and Sylvain didn’t flirt with women. There wasn’t anything  _ wrong _ with those things, so Felix didn’t think about them when Sylvain and Professor Byleth coaxed him into joining the Golden Deer class with them.

\---

The Sword of the Creator made Felix gag. And it made his heart sing with elation. It was a beautiful weapon, but also  _ wrong, wrong, wrong _ in a way he couldn’t explain anymore than he could why the professor wielding it seemed fitting. He picked it up. Once. Glenn was visiting as part of a joint training exercise between the Knights of Faerghus and Seiros and he disarmed the professor with an elegant movement. Felix grasped the hilt, felt the pieces click together, felt the bell tolling in his soul and then handed it to its owner.

Its other owner.

\---

Conand Tower was a dismal, dreary place in the rain. Miklan Gautier was an idiot for picking it. An alive idiot, running off to Sreng or Almyra with his tail between his legs, but an idiot none-the-less. He had died, which was inconvenient because Felix remembered how Sylvain reacted the last time his terrible brother died. When the demonic beast collapsed to the ground and Miklan’s dead body was revealed in its wake, Felix stepped up. Felix walked on stone wet with blood and rain and brought Miklan back to life with a solid kick to the gut.

Miklan groaned and curled around himself even as he blinked himself awake-stroke-back-to-life. “What the fuck was that?”

“You’re a fucking idiot.” He looked over at Sylvain, their professor, Claude-but-also-Khalid and the rest of their class. “There’s no need to tell anyone he’s still alive if he crawls away into some hole deep enough.”

It wasn’t a question, but no one asked why he was giving orders when they were still processing the demonic transformation.

\---

Jeritza-but-also-Emile was also -but-also-the-Deathknight, which didn’t matter until it  _ did,  _ but by then Claude had figured it out, so Felix said nothing.

\---

The first time Felix couldn’t beat time into submission his mother died. 

The second time, Byleth’s father died.

Maybe traumatic parental loss was the cost of such a power.

\---

Sylvain figured out at the first glimpse of Byleth with lighter hair and eyes. His pupils widened and he grabbed Felix’s wrist as tightly as he could. He didn’t turn to look at Felix and clue in anyone else because Sylvain was  _ smart _ and he said nothing about it aloud.

Claude wasn’t far behind, realizing when Edelgard-but-also-the-Flame-Emperor declared war on the Church of Seiros. He cornered Felix in his room and awkwardly fluttered his hands. “So, I don’t really know how this works. Am I supposed to kneel or something? Teach is one thing, but I don’t think she really knows what’s going on.”

“If you kneel, I’ll kick you in the face.”

“Got it.”

“What do you want?” Felix crossed his own arms over his chest.

Claude leaned against his desk, appearing casual when the truth was he also fainted the first time. “I suppose asking you to end the war is a bit much.”

“Edelgard dies, she becomes a martyr. She doesn’t attack the Holy Tomb, war is declared when we graduate.” He lifted an eyebrow in challenge.

“Right, I get it. Complicated. Too many weak points in the peace. My best guess is that Tomas was replaced with Solon ten years ago when he left the monastery, so this has probably been brewing at least that long.”

Felix shrugged.

“I heard from-” Claude paused, holding up a single finger as he thought. He pointed it at Felix. “Sylvain knows, doesn’t he? I couldn’t coax him into telling me anything about your whole--” Claude gestured to his face with both hands. “--But Ingrid told me it was four years ago, so too late to stop Tomas I’m guessing.”

“You have the wall if you want to talk to yourself.”

“Right. Sorry about that.” Claude closed his eyes and put his hands on his temples. His thoughts were so loud Felix had to shove them away several times over the duration. “Okay.” Claude opened his eyes. “Okay,” he repeated. “I guess I’m just asking Felix to convince his father to convince King Lambert to ally with my grandfather.”

“I am Felix,” he said. Something about the phrasing scraped unpleasantly against Felix’s mind. He tensed up like a cat whose fur had been rubbed the wrong way.

“I know. That’s not what- I  _ mean, _ I’m not asking you to… subvert their free will or compel them to listen to you.”

Felix shoved his way past Claude and out into the hall. “We’ll see.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, there will be a part 3 covering post TS and post game.
> 
> it's gonna be great. Comment with what you hope to see, maybe you'll get it 😉


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, just a note, this chapter/ending is Sylvix, so if that's not your jam, well, sorry?
> 
> Also background Bylaude/Glenngrid

Felix woke in his bed in Castle Fraldarius. He sat up and frowned. The weight of his hair was wrong. And it was braided. He pulled on the braid and pulled and pulled until coils of thick cyan braid sat on his lap. He touched his face, but no, no facial hair, not even a facsimile of his father’s hideous mustache after however long it took his hair to grow to such a ridiculous length. His room was clean, but no one had removed the dagger hidden under the frame of his bed. He cut off the braid carelessly, leaving it just long enough to easily tie in front of his shoulders. 

The power throbbing in the back of his soul said they were still at war, so he dressed in leather and sword belts before venturing out into the rest of the castle. Spiders had made homes in the high ceiling over the hallway, so some of the serving staff had been let go or repurposed for the war effort. He didn’t hear voices until he approached the kitchen, where the cook was chatting cheerily.

He stepped in just as the cook was turning and she dropped the clay bowl in her hands, porridge splattering everywhere as her scream overpowered the sound of clay shards clashing against the stone floor.

“What? This is my home.”

Sylvain jumped from his seat at the wooden preparation table and staggered to him, tripping over every chair and his own feet. His hair was different and he’d filled out his gangly teenage frame with muscle. There was a scar going up his cheek, missing his left eye and cutting his eyebrow in half. He wore a weathered teal and red gambeson with fresh oil stains. “Felix! H-hey buddy. You’re awake.”

“I’m aware.” He sliced a piece from a hard loaf from black bread and ignored the way the cook sputtered before sprinting from the kitchen. He slathered the piece with butter and bit in, savoring the taste. He paused mid-chew when Sylvain stopped next to him, far too close and thinking so fast and so loud it made Felix tired. “What?”

Sylvain took the question as an invitation to shove his face against Felix’s cheek, jabbing him with his long, cold nose. He inhaled deeply and wrapped Felix in a hug so tight it would have constricted Felix’s lungs if he wasn’t wrong. “You- you were gone. For five years.” He laughed hysterically. “And you just walk in the kitchen and make a snack like nothing happened.”

“Don’t you have a war to fight?”

Sylvain laughed again and wiped his tears off with Felix’s cheek. “You know, when we were kids and this first happened--” Sylvain didn’t have to specify the unnatural changes to Felix’s appearance. “--I thought that was as scared as it was possible to be. And then we were retreating, getting everyone out of the monastery and you just… Collapsed. And then you never woke up. Fe-”

Felix half-heartedly tried to push Sylvain off. He hated the conversation. Hated seeing Sylvain cry and hated hearing him talking about _feelings,_ but not once was he tempted to shove time around. “I’m fine now. Isn’t that enough blubbering?”

Sylvain pulled back on his own, but he put his hands on Felix’s shoulders like vices. “No! No, it isn’t. Felix, I love you.”

The confession wasn’t new information by any stretch of the imagination, but Felix still felt as if he’d been trampled by an entire battalion. Sylvain was staring at him so honestly, so earnestly with his eyes still wet from crying. Felix shoved his buttered bread into Sylvain’s mouth. “Yeah, okay, it’s not like I did it on purpose.” He pulled away and cut a second piece of bread so he could avoid Sylvain’s eyes. “And don’t even think about doing it yourself. I wouldn’t forgive you.”

Sylvain understood the words he didn’t say because he put his hand on Felix’s shoulder and pressed against his back. “Yeah, don’t worry about it.”

\---

“When Byleth told me she’d been asleep, I figured you’d be late, but not this late,” Claude said. Even after five years, he still had a wild, cagey look in his eyes when talking to Felix.

“My old man wasn’t keen on letting me go directly from sickbed to the frontlines.” Felix shrugged.

“What he means,” Sylvain said, because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut if he tried, “is that Rodrigue is gathering what he can of Fraldarius and Gautier forces to help us out with whatever we promised him you had cooked up while the bulk of the army follows His Highness.”

Felix shoved Sylvain’s arm off his shoulders and glared at him, “What do you mean follow Dimitri? He couldn’t put down a rabid dog, let alone the Empire. Why is he leading the army?”

Claude’s eyebrows shot up into his hairline and both he and Sylvain hissed long breaths out between their teeth.

“Out with it.”

Claude rubbed the back of his neck. “About a year into the war, Cornelia Arnim revealed herself to be an Imperial agent. She assassinated King Lambert and took Queen Patricia back to the Empire. Patricia who is also known as Anselma Arundel… Edelgard’s mother.”

“Yeah, His Highness didn’t take it well. Well, His Majesty now, but it’s weird to call a guy that when you’ve known him since he was in nappies.”

Felix covered his eyes with one hand. “Anything else you forgot to mention?”

Sylvain held up his hands in surrender. “In my defense, I kinda thought you knew. You know, because…” 

“Riegan?” Felix asked, tone as sharp as his sword.

“Well, since it’s technically a Holy War, I’ve got Seteth and the Knights of Seiros helping us out. On the condition we help them find Rhea, but according to Judith, she’s an Imperial prisoner, so no problems there.”

“Fine.”

\---

The battle at Gronder Field should have been easy with half of Edelgard’s forces fighting Dimitri’s on the Brionac Plains, but Hubert’s strategy, because it could have been no one else’s, had the Imperial forces focus on Claude and Sylvain. The third time Sylvain died and Felix tore time a new asshole, Hubert grinned at him with too many teeth made more dramatic by the blood dripping onto them from his head wound.

The fourth time Sylvain died, Felix had to intervene with his own swords, exhaustion throbbing through his skull and making it difficult to think. “Be more careful,” he snarled.

“I am!” Sylvain said, turning his horse around. “You don’t have to-” His words cut off with a choke so violent, Felix feared he’d been hit by an arrow. “You- You’re-” Sylvain gasped. “Did I just die? Did you just miracle me back to life?” He stared across the field to where Byleth was sprinting toward Claude’s wyvern, Sword of the Creator alive in her hands. “Oh shit. You did, didn’t you? Felix, Fe, I’m so-”

“Just don’t do it again! Idiot.”

“I’ll go help Marianne. I’m sure she needs some extra hands.”

“Go already!” Felix didn’t wait for Sylvain to ride away before sprinting off. Hubert expected his sword and thus was woefully unprepared for Felix’s gloved fist to crack across his face. He jumped on Hubert when he fell and snarled in his face before punching it a second time. “Never again.”

“Bold words, but they will do you no good.” Hubert’s body shimmered as he activated the warp spell.

Felix grabbed him by the front of his stupid coat with his bloody fist and the power reaching out from his soul with sticky tendrils. “You won’t hurt him ever again.”

\---

Fort Merceus wasn’t in Faerghus. Felix didn’t know anyone that lived there, didn’t care what happened to the Empire once the war was over, but his power had never cared about what he wanted and what he cared about. He growled as time rolled back on its own for a third time. If the power wanted him to save Merceus and wouldn’t take no for an answer, fine, he would, but then he would be done with it. He’d had enough sleepless nights and had seen enough tragedies to fill a million lifetimes. He’d had enough fighting and enough death. He’d save the stupid fort and then retire with Sylvain to a cottage in Fraldarius and let the world solve its own problems for once.

“Byleth!”

“I know!” She shouted back. “But I don’t know how to stop them!”

Felix ran to her side and put his hand over hers on the hilt of the Sword of the Creator. “Like this.” As the javelins of light came into view, he aimed the sword at the sky and _cut._

Once his heart was done beating out of his chest, Felix yanked his stiff fingers one by one off of Byleth’s hands. He shook his wrist out and ignored the incredulous stares from the army. 

Claude stepped up to them like he was approaching wild animals and Felix really had no idea what Byleth saw in him when he acted that way. Whatever, it was her problem now. All of it. 

“Well, that was something,” Claude said.

“I didn’t choose to do that,” Felix growled. Before Claude could ask any questions, Felix thrust his hand against-through- _i_ _nto_ his chest. He didn’t have to feel around before he felt _it,_ the power he’d always thought was attached to his soul was actually stuck onto his heart. He ripped it out and dropped it, bloodless, just like the untorn front of his armor, onto Byleth’s hand. “I quit.”

He walked away. Like it was that simple. Though, he had been a god or something like it. It was that simple because he’d decided it was.

In the distance, he heard Claude ask, “So, uh, Teach, you gonna keep that?”

\---

By the time their cottage was built, the war was over. Not a single person commented on the fact that Felix and Sylvain were technically deserters. Word of what happened at Fort Merceus, the javelins of light part, not the ripping a Crest Stone out of his chest part, had reached the area long before they did. Even Felix’s natural hair and eye colors didn’t yield comments from anyone except Rodrigue, who visited two months after the battle with Nemesis. 

“I will ask no questions,” he said, “as long as you attend Glenn and Ingrid’s wedding.”

As much as Felix loathed large celebrations, Ingrid had already secured a promise of his coming and Sylvain had already allowed him to keep three cats in exchange for his going, so Felix agreed without a word about his other bargains.

\---

Three years after the war, Byleth visited with Claude, who had hair the color of a spring fawn and eyes the color of old peridots. They smiled, nearly vibrating with power that only Felix could sense, and held out a blanket-wrapped bundle. Red-brown eyes that a baby shouldn’t have had blinked up at Sylvain, who fell in love at first sight.

Felix crossed his arms over his chest and refused to accept the strange horn that Claude offered him.

“Felix, come on. I spent a lot of time making this. See, the point of the horn acts like a nipple without _looking_ like one. That was really weird, don’t ask. And it’ll refill automatically with mother’s milk as long as your baby needs it.” He pointed to his chest with his free hand. “It’s my second best creation. After, of course…” He gestured to the baby.

“You can’t just give people babies.”

“We just did,” Byleth said, affecting a lack of emotions, as if that would upset Felix more.

“I didn’t say impossible. It’s irresponsible.” Felix grumbled.

“Come on, Fe, please?” Sylvain said, not even lifting his adoring gaze from the child.

Without a word, but with a glare, Felix took the miracle horn from Claude.

\---

After a lifetime of oddities around Felix, Rodrigue did not even question the child. Neither did Dimitri, nor Ingrid, nor Marianne, nor anyone.

Anyone except Glenn.

Unnatural magic? Fine.

Wielding the Sword of the Creator? Nothing.

Cutting bolts of light from the sky? Boring.

Parenthood? Well, that was one thing he could not accept in his younger brother.

“Where did you even _get_ a child?” Glenn asked, counting Adrienne’s fingers and toes and comparing their dimensions to his own baby, held in Ingrid’s arms under her unimpressed stare.

“The same place everyone else does,” Felix said because he knew the answer would upset his brother further.

“What do you _mean_ the same place everyone else does?”

“I’m not teaching you where babies come from,” Felix said with a completely straight face. Behind him, Sylvain howled with laughter that made Adrienne giggle and reach out with their tiny hand.

Glenn gestured to Ingrid and their child with two waving arms. “I know where babies come from.”

“Do you?” Felix stroked Adrienne’s peachfuzz red hair that was just starting to grow in.

“I know where babies come from,” Glenn repeated. “And there is no way you and Sylvain-”

“Babies,” Felix said slowly, as if Glenn were an idiot. “Are gifts from the Goddess.”

He thought Sylvain might pass out from how hard he was laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After hearing what happened at Merceus, Hubert told Claude about TWSITD, so Claude and his Army went east while Dimitri and his army went and took Enbarr. Anselma/Patricia begged Edelgard to accept defeat without death and everyone lived happily ever after while Byleth and Claude ended racism. 🌼


End file.
